When a device that forwards packets in a packet switching network, such as a router in the Internet, receives too many packets, the router can become deadlocked. That is, the aggregate of all the packet flows exceeds the router's capacity to handle the packets. A router experiencing a deadlock can drop packets indiscriminately.
Because a particular communication is subdivided into packets, packets belong to particular communication flows. The packets which are dropped by the router are dropped without accounting for properties of the various communication flows.
The packets can carry varying types of content, including voice, video, gaming, data, and the like. When the packets are dropped, the dropped packets can cause delays in the midst of a communication. The user can experience, for example, choppy voice communications or blurry video.